Volume One

"Why... why did you say Shrek was a school of swindlers?" Zhu Zhuqing could not help asking in confusion. Three years ago, Dai Mubai had fled the Star Luo Empire alone without a word, leaving Zhu Zhuqing behind and placing her in an extremely dangerous situation. Several times, she had nearly been assassinated. By the end, Su Xing's mouth was dry. He picked up a cup of water from the nearby table and drained it in one gulp before letting out a long breath. Zhu Zhuqing recognized him at a glance. Although their last meeting had been years ago, Dai Mubai's distinctive White Tiger Martial Soul allowed her to immediately identify this fiancé of hers in name only. Su Xing took out a cup from his Soul Tool, poured Zhu Zhuqing some water, and handed it to her. "I consider you a friend. Of course I was worried you'd be deceived by those hypocrites. So I'll reluctantly accompany you on this trip." Zhu Zhuqing instinctively looked toward the sound and saw a Soul Grandmaster with a Blue Silver Grass Wuhun fiercely battling a Soul Elder with a White Tiger Martial Soul in the Rose Hotel's lobby. "What? You know that Soul Elder with the White Tiger Martial Soul?" Su Xing glanced at Tang San and Dai Mubai, asking even though he already knew the answer. "Do you know that to become an elder of Spirit Hall, one's strength must at least reach the level of a Titled Douluo? Shrek has only been running for a little over twenty years. Since the first batch of students graduated, the oldest among them is only around thirty. When have you ever heard of a Titled Douluo in their thirties on this continent?" Curious about Dai Mubai, Zhu Zhuqing did not leave the lobby immediately. Instead, she hid with Su Xing in a corner of the corridor, wanting to see what sort of person this so-called fiancé of hers really was. "Moreover, Shrek is in an extremely remote location, established beside a backward little village. It can be called poor and underdeveloped. Its educational resources are completely inadequate, and it does not even have mimic-environment cultivation. The accommodations, food, and clothing are an utter mess." Zhu Zhuqing was already dumbfounded as she listened to Su Xing's string of explanations, her little mouth hanging wide open without a word coming out. The next morning, when the sky was just beginning to brighten, a faint strip of fish-belly white appeared in the east over the Rose Hotel. "Ah... you don't believe what I said?" Su Xing asked, somewhat puzzled. "What is most incomprehensible is that, in the end, Shrek's teachers blamed the failure of those forty-eight students to graduate on their lack of diligence in cultivation, without mentioning a single word about their school's educational problems." Nothing happened that night, and the two went to sleep separately. "Mm." Zhu Zhuqing nodded and gently tugged Su Xing, signaling him not to go out yet. "Since Shrek Academy was founded, it has admitted a total of sixty-two students. By Shrek's admission standards, every one of them was a young genius of Douluo Continent. Yet in the end, only fourteen were able to graduate from Shrek Academy. Where did the other forty-eight go?" Zhu Zhuqing was slightly stunned. Over the years in the Star Luo Empire, she had constantly been targeted by her heartless sister, and few in her family had dared associate with her. The word "friend" seemed unfamiliar to her. "That's not it." Zhu Zhuqing opened her little mouth slightly, took a bite of rabbit meat, and answered, "I traveled all the way from the Star Luo Empire because of certain family matters. I have to visit Shrek Academy. If the academy is truly as you described, then I can simply leave when the time comes." "The outcome of today's fight no longer matters. I'll give you this room. I think we'll meet again soon. When you arrive at Shrek Academy, if anyone gives you trouble, tell them the name of Dai Mubai, the Evil Eye White Tiger." "Uh, fine. Since that's the case, I'll accompany you to Shrek Academy tomorrow and take a look." Su Xing lay back in the wicker chair with his hands behind his head and chuckled. "Oh? Don't you hate Shrek Academy? Why are you still going with me?" After pondering for a moment, Zhu Zhuqing asked. Nearby stood a girl wearing rabbit-ear accessories, along with a pair of twin sisters watching the battle from not far away. After a while, Zhu Zhuqing shook her head and teased, "You seem to hold quite a grudge against Shrek Academy. Who knows whether you made up everything you just said?" At once, all of Zhu Zhuqing's favorable impression of Dai Mubai vanished. From the conversation between the two, Zhu Zhuqing learned that Dai Mubai had clashed with that Blue Silver Grass Soul Grandmaster over a room. What left her most speechless was that Dai Mubai had brought two girls to rent a room with him. "The most outrageous part is that Shrek Academy's teachers even boast everywhere that, among the fourteen graduates from their academy, one has already become an elder of Spirit Hall, with authority second only to the Pope." The moment they went downstairs, a tiger's roar drew both their attention. "Awoo!" "It's actually him..." When Zhu Zhuqing saw the Soul Elder with the White Tiger Martial Soul, her pupils contracted at once. She bit her red lip with pearly teeth and murmured softly. What Zhu Zhuqing was thinking now was surely to join forces with Dai Mubai for self-protection, but would things truly go as she wished? "Hahaha... the toughness of your Blue Silver Grass truly exceeded my expectations, but my third soul skill, White Tiger Vajra Transformation, can maintain my transformed state for half an hour. During that half hour, my attack power, defense, strength, and resistance all double. With my thirty-seventh-level Soul Power, enhanced to this extent, your poison is not enough to harm me. Even if your soul skills are ingenious and your control-type Wuhun is quite effective, you are ultimately still no match for me. This is the absolute gap in power." "Shrek's graduation requirement is merely to reach Soul Power Level forty before the age of twenty. Those young geniuses all failed because they did not receive a proper cultivation environment or good teachers, and thus faded into obscurity. I think that if those forty-eight young geniuses had been placed in any advanced Soul Master Academy on the continent, they should have been able to cultivate their Soul Power to level forty before turning twenty as well." "Friends..." Three years had now passed. Zhu Zhuqing's figure and appearance had changed tremendously, and Dai Mubai might not even recognize her anymore. The battle in the lobby began quickly and ended quickly. Dai Mubai's muscular body advanced step by step toward Tang San, silver blades extending and retracting from his tiger claws as they gave off an astonishing pressure. Su Xing knew very well that Zhu Zhuqing was determined to go to Shrek Academy mainly because Dai Mubai was there. After all, she was alone and outmatched, unable to withstand the combined forces of Dai Weisi and Zhu Zhuyun. Perhaps because they had been too tired lately, both Su Xing and Zhu Zhuqing slept until noon. They then woke up groggily, went downstairs, and prepared to head for Shrek Academy. After saying that, Dai Mubai wrapped his arms around the two beautiful twins and turned to leave the Rose Hotel. "Shrek Academy's admission requirements are extremely harsh. Applicants must be under thirteen and have Soul Power Level twenty or above. But the problem is that they do not post these requirements in advance. Only after some commoners have paid the registration fee do they tell them what is unsuitable, and they do not refund the fee either."